In the Shape of a Boar

by Lawrence Norfolk

  ‘A truck arrived from Iaşi this morning,’ offered Lia Fingerhut in explanation of the bread. ‘It had newspapers, too. Berlin newspapers.’

  ‘How did it get through?’ asked Sol. ‘Newspapers? Did you . . . . ‘

  ‘All gone by the time I got there.’ She passed him a slice. ‘Eat.’ The road was open again. Over the past days, those who had fled at the Russians’ approach had begun to reappear. They drifted in from the outlying villages to the south, or towns where they had billetted themselves on relatives. Houses throughout the town had been discreetly reoccupied, tools borrowed, repairs begun. Ghostly figures could be spied in the recesses of shops which had been closed throughout the year of the occupation. They wore aprons or long cotton coats and moved slowly around the shelves with pencils tucked behind their ears which they would remove to scrawl figures on their inventories. The returnees delivered themselves to the town they had abandoned, bringing with them canned foods, candles and rumours that Von Rundstedt's army was no more than two day's march behind them and would most likely be in Moscow by December.

  ‘I haven't got a swimming costume,’ Ruth appealed to the company.

  ‘Borrow mine,’ offered Lotte.

  The two of them moved back into the bushes to change. Sol sat down on the grass next to Chaim and Lia, who asked him if he was going to swim too. He shook his head. Jakob had removed his shoes and socks, clambered back down the bank and was soon wading down towards the bridge, seemingly oblivious to the soaking of his clothes. Ruth scampered past and jumped in, narrowly missing Rachel. Lia followed her and the three girls allowed themselves to drift downstream, only their heads bobbing above the water. Sol lay back and closed his eyes. The morning sun was strong; it would bum the bridge of his nose. He listened to the sound of the shallow water racing around the rocks and shoals, the noise receding of the girls.

  ‘You heard about Erich?’ It was Axel's voice.

  ‘Is it true?’ He kept his eyes closed, thankful that Jakob was not here.

  ‘I couldn't believe it.’

  ‘He panicked.’ That was Chaim. ‘I spoke to him a week ago. All he could talk about was his uncle in Berlin.’

  ‘The one who died?’

  ‘The other one. He’d written. Erich showed me the letter. It was very odd. Written from hospital.’

  ‘What did it say?’ Sol demanded. He roused himself and sat up. Chaim made a dismissive gesture. ‘It was mad. Just raving.’

  ‘Hey! Look over there!’ Axel interrupted, pointing to the far bank.

  Half a dozen men wearing suits had gathered by the bridge. Two carried clipboards on which they were writing busily. Another pointed to each of the piers in turn, turning back and forth to address the group. They wore their hats pushed back and used their hands to shield their eyes from the glare.

  ‘Has our mayor has seen fit to return?’ wondered Chaim aloud. ‘That's Popovici, there in the middle, isn’t it?’

  Axel nodded slowly, but Sol's attention was drawn by a different encounter. Framed within the the bridge's one surviving arch and silhouetted against the sunlight beyond, two figures were arguing. Sol could not hear what they said but their gestures were expressive: stabbing forefingers and jutting chins. The man – Jakob – stood with his back to the wall, shaking his head while the woman harangued him. The woman was Ruth. Dressed only in Lottets costume and etched in black against the sunlight, she appeared naked. Suddenly Jakob raised his hand and Sol thought for a moment that he would strike Ruth. But his hand chopped the air, once, twice. Then he turned away from her and strode out into the light.

  ‘If Popovici's back the Germans won't be far behind,’ said Axel.

  Sol nodded. Ruth was standing in the middle of the arch, staring after Jakob. She seemed to be calling him, but if this were so he gave no sign of having heard. Sol frowned and turned back to Axel. Axel had no more to say.

  ‘What are you all talking about?’ Lotte had appeared behind them.

  Sol saw Chaim shake his head almost imperceptibly.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said.

  It was late afternoon before they folded the blankets, picked up their belongings and waded in single file back across the river. An overgrown meadow led up to the road, which led in turn to the station from where they would ride the trolley-car back into town. They walked in damp skirts and trousers and the buoyant mood they had sustained among themselves through the afternoon grew more sombre. When they reached the deserted railway station they threw themselves down on the benches outside, all except Sol who paced about, looking up the hill to Springbrun Platz where the trolley-car would appear before making its way down the last part of the hill.

  As he dawdled in front of the others he thought back to the scene he had witnessed under the bridge. Ruth and Jakob sat together, but in silence. They gave no clue as to the cause of their quarrel. All had seemed well that morning: what had happened since? It was his own exclusion, of course, which unsettled him. All three of them had secrets: he and Ruth, himself and Jakob. Now Jakob and Ruth.

  Half an hour passed before they realised that the trolley-car was not going to turn up. Reluctantly, they hauled themselves upright and began the climb up the hill into town. They were silent now.

  Lia and Chaim Fingerhut bade their farewells at Uhrmacherstrasse. A little further on, some of the others turned off at the old riding school by the Heilige Kreuz church. Lotte, Rachel, Axel, Ruth, Jakob and Sol continued up the steepening slope towards Ringplatz. A few people peered down at them from the balconies of the houses lining the route but the only person they passed in the street was a tiny old woman whom none of them recognised. She looked at them as if they were mad then hurried off down a sidestreet.

  ‘What is going on?’ asked Axel. No one replied.

  They found the driverless trolley-bus parked in Ringplatz. Gustl Ritter's father was nowhere to be seen. Jakob shrugged and looked about the square, which at this hour and in the last few days had begun to host the same homeward-bound crowds as a year ago. Today it was almost deserted. Only the tables outside the Schwarze Adler were well-patronised, almost half of them taken by a large group of young men.

  The six of them walked over. When they had almost reached the outermost tables, Sol grasped the nearest elbow, which belonged to Jakob. The little group came to a confused halt.

  The seated men watched them impassively. Their uniforms were so varied and filthy that they were barely recognisable as such. Only the insignia sewn onto either the arm or the breast pocket of their faded green shirts identified them.

  ‘What is it? What's wrong?’ asked Lotte.

  ‘We should go somewhere else,’ said Axel.

  ‘The Kaiser?’ suggested Rachel.

  ‘Home,’ said Axel.

  Sol turned and caught Jakob staring at him. There was a strange expression on his face, of resignation mingled with something else. Resentment perhaps. There was no time to ponder it. They shuffled back and crossed the square.

  Lotte was still pestering Axel as they rounded the corner.

  ‘What's wrong? Why won't you tell me?’

  ‘They were Iron Guard, Lotte.’ Rachel's voice was flat.

  The others all lived to the east of Herrengasse. They parted company and Sol took off alone down a passageway which led between yards guarded by high brick walls and overlooked by the backs of tall houses. It was almost dusk but none of them showed lights. He reached Schillerpark and the chestnuts bent their huge leafy heads as though murmuring to him and then listening for his response. There was no one about. He decided to cut through the timber market, which had reopened some days before in anticipation of the German arrival. A back door was usually left unlocked and was guarded only by a nightwatchman, an old man named Hirsch, whom Sol had known since childhood. Hirsch waved as Sol poked his head through the door.

  ‘Solomon, your father was here earlier. Have you seen him?’

  Sol shook his head. As a child he had visited the market once a week at least but now he
almost never came here. He could not imagine why his father should wish to either. No consignment having been delivered since the departure of the Soviets, there was nothing to broker.

  ‘What did he want?’

  The old man shrugged. ‘What do you want?’

  This end of the yard was occupied by rows of open-sided sheds in which rough-sawn planks were stacked in tiers to season. The air moved slowly through the wood, drawing out the sap, whose faint, bitter smell hung about the yard. Initials stencilled in red paint identified the timber's owners: BvC, BHvC, SLvR. He recalled his father returning once from work with an off-cut salvaged from the mountain of scraps piled up in the south-west corner. He had shown Sol a faded double-eagle beneath which device the letters K-K Ö-U R were just legible. Sol had spelt them out and his father had expanded the initials into the sonorous imperial words: Kaiserliche-Königliche Österreichische-Ungarische Reich.

  Other initials, scrawled in yellow wax crayon, were less sonorous. They denoted the brokers who at one time had constituted a floating population of honorary uncles to the infant Sol. HT was Hermann Tischmann who carried sugar-candy in his pockets and used to slip pieces to the boy on his visits to the yard. MW was any one of three Martin Walzes, son, father and grandfather, all trading under the same name anti settling each other's accounts. The distinctive A·D·I W had once signified Abraham Wasserstein and his sons David and Isaac, now the sons alone, who were roundly disliked. Sol remembered their father as a huge, devout, terrifying man who had pinched his cheeks and asked if he could recite his ‘verses’ yet, which being seven years old he could not. He recalled, with a twinge of guilt, his strong sense of relief at the news of Abraham Wasserstein's death. But by then he had not seen the man in years, having stopped coming to the timber market in his mid teens, when, in fact, he had stopped going anywhere his father was likely to be found.

  Hirsch had retreated to the cabin by the door. What did he, Solomon Memel, want with this place now, on this particular evening? It was almost dark, the broad street beyond the far wall was silent. He should be home. The next shed along was stacked with thinner planks, which having lain here through the winter were now split and warped. The broker's initials were faded and carelessly formed, almost illegible. Sol saw hastiness and ill-temper, and deciphered the letters all too easily. LM signified Leopold Memel.

  He had been almost fifteen. Thinking back, he supposed he had begun to spend less time with his father even before their mutual bafflement had turned to antipathy. Perhaps that alone had provoked the events which had followed. His father had dismissed the more outlandish escapades of his son's youth with a tolerant wave of his hand. He might even have taken pride in them. Sol pictured the man standing here in the timber market, slapping his friends on the back, all of them talking over one another and pouring schnapps into their coffee. How would they react to the admission that Leo Memel's son spent his days hunched over a table scribbling verses? It had been three weeks before his birthday. An early present from Papa. He wondered if they had known somehow and teased the broker they had worked alongside for two decades or more. They had been living in Wassilkogasse then, in a cramped apartment in a broad street lined with chestnut trees. His father had built his bonfire in the garden behind the apartment building. Sol remembered walking home from school and somehow knowing what had happened even before he entering the apartment. The smell of smoke was still hanging in the air. So that's how you waste your time.

  Something must have triggered the act, he thought now. But what? He turned away and walked towards the machine shops at the eastern end of the yard. They had been plundered by the Russians, who had left behind an assortment of now-useless workshop furniture: empty racks, trestles, work-benches, store-chests. Sol pulled out something that looked like a low crudely-made table and sat on it. Through the railings of the main gate he watched two men hurry past on the far side of Siebenbürgerstrasse, heading into town. Within himself, he could not settle. The presence of the uniformed men at the Schwarze Adler had shaken him, their blank fatigue and the incurious way their eyes had tracked the progress across the square of their little band. Lotte's strained voice echoed in his memory. But the Iron Guard was nothing new, after all. There had been a faction in the town for years, led by a mathematics teacher. Once a month they would conduct noisy meetings in the Deutsche Haus then drink themselves insensible in a café on Mühlegasse called Die Fahne. Would the young men sitting in Ringplatz be content with cheap plum brandy? Or were they thirsty for more than that?

  Perhaps Jakob had understood. His friend's strange expression on parting might have meant nothing more than that. And yet the scene he had witnessed beneath the bridge came back to him: Jakob's flailing arms and a seemingly naked Ruth being clothed once again as she walked out into the light after him. Appealing to him? Berating him? They had been arguing and yet they had reached an agreement to conceal it from him. Arguing over himself? Over something best kept from him?

  Home, he told himself. Go home.

  The beech-scented night air settled around him. In a few more moments he would have risen and made his way back past Hirsch's shed, out into the Schillerpark, along Rutschstrasse to the turning which led to Masarykgasse. His mother would have lit the oil-lamps an hour ago and would be inventing excuses why she should delay supper for just another few minutes, until her son should return. In just a few moments.

  But then the silence was broken.

  It began as the faintest of hums, at the very limit of his hearing. He raised his head and strained to identify the sound. At first it seemed perfectly even. Then as the noise gained in volume it began to break up and soon enough he recognised the throbbing as the sound of an engine. Then several engines, and then many more than several.

  He rose and walked forward, reaching the gate as the first vehicle rumbled past. A convoy of trucks stretched the length of the road, each one illuminated in the lights of the one behind. Their engines thundered and growled, gears crunched and their wheels, each one almost shoulder-high, raised clouds of dust from the road. Canvas tarpaulins covered the roofs and sides but the backs were open and, as each passed, Sol saw the weary faces of the soldiers peering out, helmets off and rifles propped between their legs. They looked like captives while the trucks seemed endless and unstoppable, masterless beasts. Their yellow eyes dazzled him as each cab loomed suddenly out of a concentrated darkness. He stood passively, transfixed, successively washed in light then plunged into darkness. He felt a vast airy weight rise off his shoulders and float away into the night. The waiting was over and whatever would happen next had begun.

  ***

  How was he here?

  A gust of wind scudded over the concrete paving in front of the Grand Palais and slapped against the banner stretched across the building's façade. A workman standing on a low tower of scaffolding was struggling to tie down the last corner. Sol watched from across the road as the man reached for the guy-line. The wind was too quick, snatching the light rope away. His arm remained raised in frozen salute as the line whipped about out of reach. Floodlights bathed the workman in their harsh white glare and reflected off the banner's shiny plastic surface. Sol turned up the collar of his coat.

  The deepest black imaginable radiated only cold. This was that, Sol thought, looking up at the magnified image. An ember had fallen down a well, its glow adrift, wreathing it in fading heat. The picture's focus was a disappearance, framed by shadowy images which suggested entrails or sides of meat hung from hooks. It was unclear, and properly so. Besides, thought Sol, meat had no particular shape. Fleisch. German understood such matters well. French concerned itself with cuts. A further image hid behind the evidence of his eyes, which now saw vaguely-realised columns framing nothing, a flapping shriek of ego daubed in darkening reds on a plasticised tarpaulin. Blood blackened, bodies gaped and one's eyes could lie. The cavity of a carcass? The wind nudged a reluctant ripple across the image and the fabric crackled dully. He imagined he had seen this painti
ng before, but it was impossible.

  He had walked down rue La Fayette as far as the Opera House. From there, he had taken to the sidestreets. Place de la Concorde was a waste of wind and traffic, the river a dark channel of silence. He overlooked it from the embankment while cars whined past to his right. An empty bateau mouche had slid by. He stood opposite the gallery. Faucher had mentioned the painter's name. The exhibition was to open tomorrow.

  He was meant to recall a memory. That was what the painter sought from him; the painting existed for that to happen. Its recessions and dissolves were a kind of mimicry, evoking a generic texture, as if all remembered pasts shared a single sensation. As if memory had a particular shape in mind when it scraped and scrabbled among one's bones. Look at all this glistening flesh! What skeleton should it clothe? The bodies Sol remembered had belonged to his fellow-passengers aboard a Métro train.

  He had boarded at Gare de l'Est. A hot late-summer afternoon. At every stop the carriage gulped humid air from the platforms, then held its breath until the next: République, Oberkampf, Richard-Lenoir. At Bréguet-Sabin the last seats had been taken and those joining the train thereafter had been forced to stand. The two businessmen must have joined the train before then. They had been sitting a little way down the carriage. Every time the train lurched the standing passengers had swayed and momentarily parted so he had caught glimpses of them: dressed in grey suits, one asleep or unconscious, the other red-faced, his tie undone, fanning himself with a sheaf of papers. He had assumed that they were together. A young woman had been among those standing nearest to him, wearing knee-boots, a short skirt and a suede coat trimmed with yellowing fleece, too warm for the time of year. She pouted sulkily, although he would later ask himself how exactly he had arrived at that assumption. She was one of the new young, neither children nor properly adults. They had sprung into existence over the previous year; or perhaps he had failed to notice them before that, the young unkempt men and beautiful women. Sol had amused himself by watching the other passengers’ reactions to her, which were complicated and perhaps hypocritical. It was apparent that, beneath her near-transparent blouse, she was naked.